Finished Legion, Though the Pages Were Many

As the title suggests, I've just finished reading William Peter Blatty's sequel to his bestseller, The Exorcist. Some of you may have seen the film (known as Exorcist III: Legion to cinemagoers), but like its predecessor, the meat and potatoes of the book lie not in the spinning heads and pea soup, but in the analysis of good and evil, God, faith and the greater unknown.

Also like its predecessor, Legion is, at its core, a murder mystery. Lieutenant Kinderman, a holdover from the first novel and film, is brought in to investigate a grisly murder and mutliation one Sunday morning in 1983, 12 years after the events of The Exorcist. Over the course of the next week, Kinderman's faith, powers of deduction and even his sanity are put to the test as he investigates a number of seemingly random killings and is forced to come face to face with two ghosts from his past.

Legion is less of a page-turner than The Exorcist but I appreciated Blatty taking the opportunity to examine some of the themes he's come to be known for at more than face value. He started this in Exorcist, continued it in Twinkle, Twinkle, Killer Kane (a thematic sequel), and follows up on it nicely here (the literal sequel). I will concede the point that it doesn't always come across smoothly in the narrative of the story, and it does get deathly boring at times, but Blatty manages to rein everything in before you become too distracted by, or lost in, all the cosmic mulling about.

The Exorcist actually managed to send chills up my spine from time to time, but I don't think 'fright beats' were number one on the agenda when Blatty set out to write this novel. It's a little more of a thinker than the first book and a lot lighter in tone, considering. Still a worthwhile read, though, and great preperation for the Schrader prequel which hits theatres (in limited release) on May 20th.

mike